Social networking is the interaction between people to share information, ideas, resources and interests. A popular form of social networking uses social networking services over the Internet. A social networking service allows a person to become a “user,” create a profile (description of the user) for the user's web page, communicate with other users, or utilize a range of other services available through the social network service. Examples of popular social networking services are Facebook® (Registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.), foursquare® (Registered trademark of Foursquare Labs, Inc.), and Twitter® (Registered trademark of Twitter, Inc.).
Users of social networking services communicate with other users of the service through “social networking messages,” which are messages sent to the social networking service that can be made available to the general public, all users of the service, or to a select set of friends or followers.
For example, a user of a social networking service, such as Facebook, can post a message or status update on his or her “Facebook wall.” A “Facebook wall” is a user's virtual wall displayed when a user is logged in to the Facebook service. This wall is where a user can post messages for viewing by his or her friends, and where he or she can view messages posted by his or her friends on their walls. Users can also post messages directly on a friend's wall. In another example, a user of a social networking service, such as Twitter, can post a “Tweet®” message which is a message posted to a Twitter account. These Tweet messages can either be public or protected. A public Tweet message can be viewed by anyone while a protected Tweet message can only be seen by approved “followers.” Followers are other users of Twitter social networking service that have subscribed to a user's Twitter updates.
Many social networking services, such as foursquare and Facebook allow users to “check in” to a specific location (check-in location) and share their location with others. For example, users can check in to a specific location by using a mobile social networking application on a smart phone or other computing device. Physical location of the smart phone or other device is typically determined using the Global Positioning System (GPS) capabilities of the smart phone or other computing device.
Many social networking applications have a feature where a user can see a list of nearby places into which the user can check in. If a location is not on the nearby places list, the user can add the location directly from the phone. Once a user has checked in, they have the option of sharing their location with friends in services such as foursquare or Facebook.